What do you do with French cuff shirts? These shirts surely present a small
percentage of all the shirts that we process, but they present some interesting opportunities for
us and probably, due to that, they tend to stand out in our minds.

There are a variety of ways to present French cuffs and surely there is no wrong way and no right way. I am not endorsing one way over another.

What you do may be dictated, to a certain extent, by your customers’ expectations. In certain geographic areas, certain things are done certain ways for no apparent
reason. This is true whether you are talking about French cuffs, equipment layouts or what
materials are used for railings.

I have seen French cuffs packaged like the one in Photo 1.

This is what I did and it’s probably the way that I see them least often. You shouldn’t do this because I did, but you might start doing this when you learn why I did it. I’ll get back to that.

I have seen French cuffs pressed folded. I can’t say that I have seen this often, but a few times. It seems a bizarre thing to do and I don’t think that GQ would approve, but if that’s what your market expects, then you may have to comply.

You may cause irreparable damage to the shirt if you don’t press the crease at the precisely correct place. The buttonholes, of course, must be perfectly aligned. A Chicago drycleaner was reviewed on Yelp by someone complaining that this wasn’t done, “…I continue to ask for my shirts with French cuffs to be pressed with the cuff folded… and they continue to forget to do it.”

Maybe the drycleaner knows better?

Most often, I see French cuffs folded in the manner in which they are worn — folded gently and a quasi-cuff link inserted.

I guess that this is OK, but about 30 years ago an old-timer told me how that custom began and it put a bad taste in my mouth, so I never did it. I have seen rental-quality, give-away cuff links used instead of that little black nub that is often seen. The budget version of these is what you see pictured in Photo 2. It performs the same function.

Sometimes, you hear things that sound particularly credible, even when what you heard sounds, well, incredible.

More than 30 years ago, an old-time drycleaner was chatting with me. He took a set of French cuffs into his aged hands and said, “back in the day, shirt laundrymen didn’t know how to get the dirty ring out of these cuffs, so they would fold them after pressing because that way the ring wouldn’t be so obvious.”

Look at Photo 3. I think that he’s right, either that or he spun a heck of a wives’ tale. I was taught that any job worth doing was a job worth doing right, so I just got the cuffs clean and was proud to show my customers!